Bomber 'tried to radicalise child'

The July 7 bombers all previously showed radical views, the inquest into the terror attacks heard

July 7 ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan tried to radicalise one of his 11-year-old pupils, the inquest into the attacks has heard.

Khan befriended the young boy after meeting him through his job as a primary school mentor and attempted to convert him to Islam.

He introduced him to Shehzad Tanweer, his number two in planning the 2005 London bombings, and on one occasion told the child that people would "pay" for what they had done to Pakistan.

Concerns were also raised about fellow bomber Jermaine Lindsay's attempts to indoctrinate younger pupils in extremist views while he was still at school, the inquest was told.

Lindsay handed out leaflets in support of al Qaida and Osama bin Laden to fellow students at Rawthorpe High School in Huddersfield. He also took young pupils to the school library to use the computers to access jihadist websites and download inflammatory material about the Taliban and the 9/11 attacks on the US.

Lindsay, 19, told one teacher he wanted to fight in Afghanistan and even boasted of planning to join the British Army so he could kill his fellow soldiers.

Tanweer, 22, told his uncle he taught young children about Islam at the Iqra Islamic bookshop in Beeston, Leeds, which was also linked to Khan and other extremists.

And the fourth of the July 7 bombers, Hasib Hussain, 18, defaced a schoolbook with a reference to al Qaida and a picture of planes crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York when he was just 15 or 16, the inquest heard.

Khan, 30, was employed as a youth worker from 1997 and became a learning mentor at Hillside Primary School in Beeston in March 2001, a job that required no formal qualifications.

The coroner, Lady Justice Hallett, noted that there was nothing in Khan's past that would have stopped him working in the school.